Affliction

“I have often seen excellent men horribly vexed by terrors, afflictions, and the severest persecutions, so much so that they nearly experienced despair of heart. But these things must be learned so that we may be able to comfort such men and interpret the temptations as the special manner by which God is accustomed to wrestle with us in the form of a destroyer and that we may exhort them firmly to retain the promise, or lamp and spark, of the Word in the hope that the rescue will certainly follow. For God leads down to hell and brings back (cf. 1 Sam. 2:6). Now you see His back parts, and God seems to be shunning you, but sometime later you will see His front parts and His face. This is what it means for Him to love those whom He chastises. This love must be learned from experience, nor should chastisement be avoided and shunned. The story is told of a peasant who, when he heard this consolation from his pastor, that the afflictions and troubles by which God afflicts us are signs of His love, replied: ‘Ah, how I would like Him to love others and not me!’

“This was a foolish and impious reply. We should not feel and speak like this, nor should God’s works in us be interpreted and understood in this way. But we should know that mortification is very salutary. By it we are instructed for life and salvation, not for destruction, as Paul testifies when he says (Rom. 12:2): ‘That you may prove’ (not only that you may learn by words but that you may also learn by experience) ‘what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ For this is God’s will, our mortification and sanctification (cf. 1 Thess. 4:3). But we cannot be sanctified unless the flesh and the body of sin is mortified, which in this life with all its force is driven into sins of every kind, adulteries, lusts, thefts, etc. . . . My flesh shrinks from temptation, but I know that this is the excellent will of God. Likewise: ‘The Lord has chastened me sorely, but He has not given me over to death’ (Ps. 118:18). ‘I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the Lord helped me’ (Ps. 118:13), so that my soul should see the face of God and be saved. ‘I thank Thee that Thou hast answered me and hast become my Salvation’ (Ps. 118:21)” (LW 6:151–52).

“Look at those delightful promises of God: ‘Who is not partial’; likewise, ‘Who takes no bribe’; likewise, ‘He executes judgment for the fatherless and the widow’; likewise, ‘He loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing’ (Deut. 10:17–18). With these words God clearly consoles all the wretched, lost, and afflicted in the whole world and draws their hearts to Himself, that they may believe in Him and trust in His goodness, as the one and only God demands. If He does not regard persons, I already have something because of which to glory, to puff up my heart, and to be proud against all the kings, princes, rich and strong men of the world. By them I am despised and deserted as poor, mean, and weak. Yet I am certain that I am regarded, sustained, and cared for by Him who is the God of gods and the Lord of lords (as Moses also teems and is magnificent with words here), the powerful one, fearful above all my despisers. What, therefore, would I lack, if some lord of a few servants despises me, while the Lord of all lords and the God of gods deems me worthy of His care?” (LW 9:111).

Called “the American Luther,” the Rev. Dr. C. F. W. Walther is celebrated as one of the founders of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and of the log cabin college (1839) that became one of the ten largest seminaries in North America: Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. The educational emphasis and precedents Walther set made his theological heirs highly influential in American Christianity a century later and his legacy persists through his most widely read book, Law and Gospel.